EU members against punitive duties on Chinese solar panels

It was not common for EU officials to lobby member states after they had submitted their final position, the sources said.

"If the commission is indeed pressuring countries not to vote 'no,' this is potentially undermining the legitimacy of the process," the sources said.

"The commission cannot initiate a consultation and then try to change the member states' position when it is not satisfied with the outcome of the consultations. That is not how a legal process for consultations works."

Due to its "disastrous" impact on jobs and business along the EU photovoltaic (PV) industry value chain, the commission's plan to impose punitive duties averaging 47 percent on Chinese solar panels has been widely opposed by EU business leaders and politicians.

When the vote was held Friday, a symbolic funeral march was conducted in Brussels to commemorate more than 200,000 jobs that were expected to be lost as a result of the proposed punitive duties.

The event was organized by the Alliance for Affordable Solar Energy (AFASE), a coalition of more than 580 companies in the European PV industry representing more than 60,000 EU jobs and a turnover of more than 20 billion euros ($25.9 billion) in the bloc.

The sources said it had become a consensus among most EU countries that the potential positive impact of duties for EU solar producers would be dwarfed by the negative impact on employment.

Many business leaders in the EU's PV industry have warned that they would run out of business and the solar market might collapse if China's high-quality and less-expensive solar products were shut out of the European market.